Despite the release of its GeForce RTX 40-series (Ada) graphics cards, Nvidia isn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Ampere just yet. Similar to how Asus has recently confirmed the existence of the new Ampere SKU, Nvidia hasn’t officially launched the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X.

The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X, GeForce RTX 3060 8GB, and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GA102 are all rumoured to be included in the upcoming upgrade. The update could be an indication that Nvidia has a surplus of Ampere dies and is looking for a way to get rid of them. As a result, Ampere family graphics cards rather than Ada could be the next candidates for the title of best graphics card.

The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8G GDDR6X and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition 8G GDDR6X graphics cards are now available from Asus, as first reported by VideoCardz. The latter model comes with a factory overclock. The normal GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition increases to 1,665 MHz, the same boost clock as the basic version. The graphics card from Asus, however, features an OC option that raises the clock speed even higher, to 1,695 MHz. The OC edition, on the other hand, has a 1,785 OC boost clock and a 1,775 MHz default boost clock.

The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X will perform better than the base model thanks to the increased boost clock rates. The transition from 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory to 19 Gbps GDDR6X memory, however, is the real star of the show. The GDDR6X memory will increase the memory throughput of the Ampere graphics card even while the memory capacity and 256-bit interface remain same.

The GDDR6X version of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti has up to 608 GBps of memory bandwidth, compared to the normal model’s up to 448 GBps. The new SKU is an improvement of 36%. Synthetic benchmarks, which don’t often tell the whole story, showed that the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X outperformed the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti by up to 10% in an earlier leak. It will be interesting to observe if the increased memory bandwidth improves real-world gaming.

The TDP for the specialised GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X graphics cards was sadly not listed by Asus. According to Asus’ design, the new version does appear to use more power.

Only one 8-pin PCIe power connector is used by the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition 8GB GDDR6 graphics card. The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition 8G GDDR6X, in comparison, has two 8-pin PCIe power ports. The boost clocks on both graphics cards are identical, so the higher power need cannot be attributed to the clock rates. Instead, it depends on the memory type.

Given that each 8-pin PCIe power connector can handle 150W, the change is significant. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X does not necessary draw the full 150W despite the additional power connector. Despite the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition 8G GDDR6X’s dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors, Asus still advises a 750W power supply.

The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition 8GB GDDR6 is the recommended minimum. The power connector configuration leads us to believe that the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X likely has a greater TDP but, at least in Asus’ instance, is not significant enough to necessitate a larger power supply.

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